COLUMN: Czech Republic Tears Itself Apart on Eve of Ankara — Babiš Against the Constitution

Introduction: A constitutional trial as foreign policy

Prague against itself on the eve of Ankara

Some of the most revealing crises are also the most absurd. This one begins with a simple question: who represents the Czech Republic at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 and 8, 2026? President Petr Pavel — former general of the Czech army, former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, unwavering supporter of Ukraine — or Prime Minister Andrej Babiš — billionaire populist, self-proclaimed fan of Trump, returned to power in December 2025 on a promise to stop funding military aid to Kyiv?

The answer should have been obvious. The Czech Constitution states that the president is the international representative of the state. Custom dictates that presidents have led almost every Czech delegation to NATO summits since the Czech Republic joined the Alliance in 1999. But Babiš chose to break that custom — and the Constitutional Court had to intervene as an emergency measure to bring him back into line.

The anatomy of a manufactured crisis

Monday's move: the exclusion

It begins on a Monday, when the Babiš government announces it will deviate from tradition and not give Petr Pavel the top spot in the Czech delegation at the Ankara summit. The decision is worded with the technocratic legalism characteristic of political maneuvers: the government, it says, needs "the necessary space to explain its policies to allies" — specifically the fact that the Czech Republic is not meeting NATO's objective of spending at least 2% of GDP on defence. Babiš cut $1 billion from the defence budget inherited from the previous administration.

Translated without filters: Babiš did not want Pavel — who publicly supports higher defence spending and aid to Ukraine — to come and contradict his own political line in front of the heads of state and government of NATO's 32 members. He preferred to manage the situation alone, with his Foreign Minister Petr Macinka, leader of the right-wing Motorists party, himself in conflict with Pavel since the president had refused to appoint his preferred candidate as head of Czech diplomacy.

The Constitutional Court strikes on Wednesday

The judicial response comes swiftly. On Wednesday, June 24, 2026, the Czech Constitutional Court issues an emergency interim measure: the government must immediately notify NATO and the summit organizers that President Pavel will be part of the delegation. Deadline: Friday, June 27. The Court is explicit: this interim decision does not prejudge the substance — the question of presidential powers will be settled separately, with a final ruling expected in September 2026.

The Babiš government complies. On Monday, June 29, it officially announces that it authorizes Pavel's participation. But it holds to a position of principle: Babiš himself will lead the Czech delegation and attend the main meetings. Pavel responded by stating that he would be present at the leaders' dinner and the plenary session the following day — and that he would respect official government positions, while remaining free to express them as he sees fit.

Petr Pavel: the president Babiš cannot erase

A military career that speaks for itself

Petr Pavel is not a drawing-room politician. He is a general. He commanded the Czech army, then served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2015 to 2018 — the Alliance's highest military function. When he speaks about collective defence, military spending, and support for Ukraine, he is not drawing from consultant reports. He is drawing from decades of command experience in an alliance he helped to lead.

His election to the Czech presidency in 2023 sent a strong signal from the electorate: the Czech Republic wanted a credible leader on the international stage, capable of representing a Central Europe firmly anchored in NATO and in the European Union. Since Babiš's return to power in December 2025, that credibility has become a permanent friction between the two heads of the Czech executive.

Support for Ukraine as the fault line

The dividing line is clear. Pavel is an unwavering supporter of Ukraine. He believes that the Ukrainian resistance protects Europe, that defence spending is an investment rather than a cost, and that Atlantic solidarity is non-negotiable. Babiš, by contrast, came to power promising not to fund military aid to Kyiv — a position he maintained despite the commitments of his predecessors and despite pressure from allies.

This fracture is not merely political. It is strategic. At the Ankara summit, allies were to discuss an additional €70 billion in support for Ukraine. The presence of an isolationist Babiš without the counterweight of an Atlanticist Pavel would have sent a deeply negative signal. The Constitutional Court, without saying so explicitly, prevented a disastrous Czech communications disaster in front of all NATO allies.

Babiš: the pro-Trump populist returns

A platform built on rejecting the burden

Andrej Babiš is a familiar figure on the Czech and European political scene: billionaire founder of the ANO movement, multiple-time prime minister, repeatedly implicated in legal proceedings over his business practices and conflicts of interest. His return to power in December 2025 rested on an explicitly populist platform: cut spending, step back from collective defence commitments, cultivate the image of a convenient partner for a Trumpist Washington without the obligations that entails for allies.

He cut $1 billion from the defence budget inherited from the previous administration. The Czech Republic had been on track to reach NATO's 2% of GDP target — he reversed that trajectory. The Czech Republic had built a solid record of military support for Ukraine — he stopped it. It is a coherent policy in its own internal logic, even if it is disastrous in its strategic logic.

Trump's pressure as an alibi

Babiš cites Trump's pressure to justify his desire to clarify Czech positions at Ankara. But he is doing exactly the opposite of what Trump is actually asking: Trump demands that allies spend more on defence — up to 5% of GDP. Babiš has cut the defence budget. Trump complains about NATO free riders — Babiš is precisely that kind of free rider. Czech populism borrows the Trumpist aesthetic without adopting his substantive positions on defence.

This is an intellectual deception that NATO allies can see clearly. And it is what the presence of Pavel at Ankara was likely to expose in front of other heads of state. A Czech president who knows NATO from the inside, who defends sensible positions on defence, cannot be silenced by a prime minister seeking to escape his responsibilities.

The Czech Constitution in the storm

What the constitutional text actually says

The Czech Constitution stipulates that the president is the representative of the state on the international stage. The government formulates and implements foreign policy — but it does so within an institutional framework of cohabitation with a president directly elected by the people since 2013. Pavel argued that his exclusion from the delegation impeded the exercise of his constitutional functions. The Constitutional Court agreed — provisionally.

That provisional nature matters. The final ruling on the distribution of powers between president and government in foreign affairs is expected in September 2026. That final judgment will set the precedent governing relations between the two institutions for years to come. The stakes go far beyond a single summit: the question is who, in a cohabitation, has the last word on the country's international representation.

A personal conflict that pre-existed

The relationship between Pavel and the Babiš government was already poisoned before this crisis. Foreign Minister Petr Macinka had warned he would make life difficult for Pavel after the president had refused to appoint his party's preferred candidate as head of Czech diplomacy. This personal hostility provided the backdrop against which the Ankara exclusion was decided — driven as much by a desire to punish Pavel and test his resistance as to serve any coherent diplomatic objective.

In political cohabitations, the temptation to transform substantive disagreements into institutional conflicts is always strong. What the Babiš government attempted was to use procedure — the composition of the delegation — to marginalize a political opponent it cannot remove from office. The Constitutional Court said no. For now.

What this crisis reveals about Trump's pressure inside NATO

How American pressure fractures allied governments

The summary offered by European diplomats is damning: if NATO held its next summit in Albania — another country that has not met its defence commitments — Trump might lose his temper and generate "bad headlines." This anxiety about the Trumpist reaction has become a primary driver of decision-making in some European capitals. And Babiš — a self-proclaimed fan of Trump — has turned it into a political opportunity: by positioning himself as the champion of deference toward Washington, he can justify his defence cuts as strategic prudence.

But the reality is simpler and more brutal: Trump wants allies who pay more, not less. Babiš is paying less. His pro-Trump positioning is therefore a political chimera: he adopts the Trumpist rhetoric of distrust toward multilateral institutions without adopting the Trumpist substance of increased defence spending. It is pure populism: seducing a Eurosceptic electoral base without paying the geopolitical price.

NATO under the pressure of unequal spending

The Ankara summit of July 7-8, 2026 brings together the 32NATO heads of state and government in a context of deep divisions over defence spending. Spain has refused to commit to 5% of GDP. Hungary navigates its usual ambiguities. The Czech Republic is in retreat. Only the Baltic states, Poland, and a few others are truly meeting their obligations. Trump's pressure for a more European NATO — paradoxically — produces both serious responses (the British defence plan, German rearmament) and populist resistance (Babiš, Orbán) that undermines the Alliance's collective credibility.

The Czech crisis is a metaphor for this tearing: on one side a president embodying Atlanticist responsibility, on the other a prime minister embodying the temptation of disengagement. This duel recurs, in different forms, across several NATO member countries. The Constitutional Court has arbitrated in the Czech Republic. In other countries, the referee is not as effective.

The delicate Czech cohabitation

Two heads, two policies

The Czech Republic is experiencing political cohabitation in the full sense of the term: a president directly elected since 2013, with his own powers in international affairs and defence, and a government that formulates and executes foreign policy. When the two heads of the executive agree, the system functions. When they disagree at a deep ideological level — as has been the case since December 2025 — every arbitration becomes a potential conflict.

The Pavel-Babiš cohabitation is among the most tense in recent Czech political history. Their positions diverge on almost everything touching security policy: defence spending, support for Ukraine, alignment toward NATO and the European Union. Pavel wants deeper engagement. Babiš wants fewer obligations. The Constitutional Court has become the arbitration forum for these fundamental divergences.

The democratic paradox

There is a striking democratic paradox in this situation. Pavel was elected by Czech citizens to represent their country. Babiš was elected by Czech citizens to govern. Both therefore hold legitimate democratic mandates — but their positions on the most urgent foreign policy questions are diametrically opposed. Czech citizens have, in a sense, voted for both camps simultaneously. The Constitutional Court is the only actor capable of resolving this contradiction before it becomes unmanageable.

This is not a malfunction of democracy — it is democracy in its actual complexity. Voters express multiple and sometimes contradictory preferences. Institutions must then manage that complexity. The fact that the Czech Constitutional Court acted — quickly, effectively, provisionally — is good news for the health of the rule of law in the Czech Republic.

The Ankara summit and its stakes for Ukraine

What Kyiv expected from Prague

For Kyiv, the question is not abstract. The Czech Republic had been, under previous governments, one of Ukraine's most active arms suppliers — notably in artillery shells, obtained through third-party procurement channels outside of official NATO circuits. Babiš's return to power with his promise to stop funding military aid created a real gap in the Ukrainian supply chain.

Pavel's presence at Ankara was therefore both political and symbolic: demonstrating that the Czech Republic is not monolithically disengaged, that important voices in Prague continue to defend support for Ukraine, that Babiš's withdrawal is not the country's unanimous position. For a summit intended to confirm €70 billion in aid to Ukraine, having a credible Czech representative at the table carries concrete diplomatic value.

€70 billion and the sceptics

The Ankara promise of €70 billion in aid to Ukraine requires buy-in from all NATO members. Members who, like the Czech Republic under Babiš, have cut their defence budgets and refused to contribute to Ukrainian assistance undermine the collective credibility of that commitment. If the 32 members cannot reach a unified position, the summit's final declaration risks ringing hollow — exactly what Moscow hopes for.

The Czech crisis has shown that the fracture is not between NATO member countries — it is a fracture internal to member countries, between governing institutions defending opposing policies. This kind of internal dysfunction is more difficult for the Alliance to manage than disagreements between members, precisely because it escapes the usual diplomatic mechanisms.

Central Europe: the populist fault line

Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia: the problematic bloc

The Czech crisis does not exist in a vacuum. It illustrates a broader trend in Central Europe: the rise of populist governments that, while remaining members of NATO and the European Union, seek to minimize their defence obligations and resist collective pressure to support Ukraine. Orbán's Hungary is the most advanced example. Fico's Slovakia is another. And now Babiš's Czech Republic.

This informal bloc of reluctance creates friction in the Alliance's mechanics. It cannot block decisions — NATO operates by consensus on major issues, but financial commitments are bilateral or multilateral outside of treaty obligations. But it can dilute the political credibility of collective commitments, create spaces of ambiguity that Moscow knows how to exploit, and send dangerous signals to other members tempted to reduce their contributions.

The institutional counterweight

What distinguishes the Czech Republic from other cases is precisely the strength of its institutionalism: a Constitutional Court that acts swiftly, a president with independent direct democratic legitimacy, a civil society and press that follow these issues closely. These institutional counterweights do not make Pavel win on substance — Babiš's policy on defence spending and aid to Ukraine remains in place. But they prevent total drift, keep the complexity of the Czech position visible on the international stage, and preserve spaces where responsible positions can continue to be heard.

This is a lesson for democracies under populist pressure: institutions matter. Not always spectacularly. Sometimes just by forcing a prime minister to bring his president to a NATO summit.

What Pavel said at Ankara

The president's position in plain terms

Petr Pavel was transparent about his intentions: he would attend the leaders' dinner and the plenary session the following day. He would respect official government positions — but that would not prevent him from expressing them as he sees fit, with his own convictions and personal analysis. He cited custom: "The government should follow the established practice until the Court renders its decision. The president as head of state should have the opportunity to represent... as head of the delegation."

This careful formulation reveals the fundamental tension of cohabitation: Pavel does not want to turn the NATO summit into a Czech political circus. He knows that images of disunity are precisely what his adversaries want to produce — and what Moscow would want to see. His presence at Ankara is therefore calculated to be both solid and measured: present, credible, Atlanticist, without turning every intervention into an open act of defiance against his prime minister.

A role more symbolic than decisional

The reality is that in the mechanics of a NATO summit, the head of delegation matters more symbolically than decisionally. Decisions are prepared in advance through multilateral diplomatic processes that summits ratify rather than create. The value of Pavel's presence at Ankara is therefore primarily that of a signal: the Czech Republic is not uniform in its disengagement, important Czech voices remain in favour of Atlantic solidarity and support for Ukraine.

This signal has value for allies — notably those who must explain to their own parliaments why they continue to make financial commitments even when some members drag their feet. And it has value for Ukraine, which monitors every NATO summit as a thermometer reading of its Western support.

The Trump fracture in Western alliances

How an American presidency weakens its own allies

The Czech crisis is, among other things, a side effect of the Trump era. By validating Eurosceptic European populists as acceptable political partners, by publicly criticizing multilateral institutions, by cultivating direct relationships with leaders like Orbán or Babiš, the Trump administration has given international legitimacy to policies that, without this implicit endorsement, would have been more difficult to sell politically.

Babiš can cut the defence budget and refuse aid to Ukraine partly because he calculates that his alignment with Trump earns him a form of protection — or at least tolerance — from the American administration. This calculation may be wrong, especially if Trump decides tomorrow that allies in Central Europe must pay more, not less. But as long as the calculation seems plausible, it fuels a disengagement policy that weakens NATO from within.

Trump as a necessary evil and a structural risk

Trump is a necessary evil for the West: his pressure has forced rearmaments that the previous complacency would never have produced. But his validation of anti-Atlanticist populisms creates a structural risk for NATO cohesion that simply increasing budgets cannot offset. An alliance in which some members are disengaging ideologically from the collective project — even while formally participating — is a weakened alliance. The Czech crisis is its miniaturized demonstration.

The real test is not whether Pavel attends Ankara. The real test is whether the Czech Republic — and countries that resemble it — will ultimately vote serious defence budgets and concrete aid commitments for Ukraine. The Constitutional Court can compel attendance. It cannot compel conviction.

Outlook: September 2026 and the final ruling

The coming decision on presidential powers

The Constitutional Court's decision of June 24 was provisional. The final ruling on the distribution of powers between president and government in foreign affairs is expected in September 2026. This ruling will be critical: if it strengthens presidential powers in international representation, it will give Pavel a solid legal basis to shape Czech foreign policy even against a hostile government. If it restricts them, Babiš will have freer hands to marginalize the presidency.

Legal observers note that the Czech Constitution, drafted in 1993, did not anticipate the type of antagonistic cohabitation we are witnessing today. Its ambiguities about the respective powers of president and prime minister in foreign policy are precisely what the Court will need to clarify. The outcome will redraw the contours of the Czech semi-presidential system for years to come.

The consequences for future summits

The question of the Czech Republic's international representation will not arise only at Ankara. It will arise at every NATO summit, every European Council, every multilateral diplomatic conference. If the Pavel-Babiš cohabitation lasts — and presidential elections are not imminent — every major international meeting will be a potential conflict. The September legal clarification therefore carries institutional importance that far exceeds the ego contest of Ankara.

And for Ukraine, which monitors every political development in Central Europe, the Czech trajectory remains worrying. A Babiš government strengthened by a favourable constitutional ruling would be difficult news for Kyiv. A government constrained by the Court and the presidency would send a more nuanced signal — and perhaps one more representative of what Czech citizens actually want.

The role of the press and civil society

Transparency as resistance

The Pavel-Babiš crisis was exposed in all its complexity by a Czech and international press that documented every step: the Monday announcement, the presidential request, the Court's Wednesday decision, the Friday deadline, the following Monday compliance. This transparency is not a luxury — it is an accountability mechanism. When a government's decisions are visible, illegitimate maneuvers are harder to carry out.

Czech media played their role. The international press — from Reuters to US News, from Prague Daily to European publications — relayed and contextualized. This made Babiš's position internationally untenable: forcing the exclusion of an Atlanticist president from a NATO summit in full view of all allies was a politically too costly gesture to sustain.

What Czech citizens stand to gain

Czech citizens hold two conflicting democratic mandates. They voted for Pavel because they wanted a credible representative on the international stage. They voted for Babiš because they wanted a break from what they perceived as excessive European and Atlantic obligations. This contradiction is real — and the Czech political system must manage it without tearing itself apart.

The Ankara crisis did not resolve this contradiction. It simply made it visible. And visibility is the first condition of democratic debate. Czech citizens now know exactly what each head of their executive represents — and they will be able to judge at the next elections whether what they have seen suits them.

The lessons of a crisis for Europe

What other democracies can learn

The Pavel-Babiš crisis offers a valuable lesson for European democracies facing similar pressures: institutions hold when they are built solidly and when courageous actors accept the responsibility to invoke them. The Constitutional Court played its role. Pavel played his. The government ultimately complied with the ruling. This cycle must be repeated every time populists test the limits — and for this cycle to work, institutional actors must have the courage to resist.

The European Union and NATO have a direct interest in the national institutions of their members remaining strong. An alliance of rule-of-law states is structurally more reliable than an alliance of regimes wavering between democracy and populism. Czech institutional resilience is therefore, for NATO, a strategic asset on par with defence budgets.

Ukraine as the touchstone of European values

The war in Ukraine has created a values test that European democracies cannot avoid. Support Kyiv or not, meet defence obligations or not, maintain Atlantic solidarity or not: these choices reveal what each government truly believes democracy to be, and what it is prepared to do to defend it. Babiš has answered this question in the negative. Pavel answers it in the affirmative. And Czech institutions, provisionally, chose Pavel's side.

This is not the end of the story. The September 2026 ruling can shift this balance. The next Czech elections can strengthen Babiš or resist him. But for now, the chronicle of an ordinary constitutional crisis has become a small manifesto on what Europe wants to be. And what Europe wants to be is the most important value that Ukraine is helping us defend.

Conclusion: A revealing farce in a war of values

What this crisis tells us about the Western alliance

The Pavel-Babiš-Constitutional Court saga might appear anecdotal in the grand narrative of the war in Ukraine and the geopolitical tensions of 2026. That would be a misreading. It reveals with surgical precision the internal fractures running through Western democracies: between Atlanticists and isolationists, between those who understand that collective security has a price and those who want to benefit without paying it, between institutions of law and populist reflexes that circumvent them.

These fractures are not new. But they are more dangerous in the context of a war in Europe that demands cohesion, continuity, and credibility. The Czech Constitutional Court has, provisionally, maintained the coherence of its country's international position. It did what it was created to do: apply the law against the political convenience of the moment. That is unremarkable. And in today's world, that is heroic.

Ukraine at the heart of the Czech political divorce

Ukraine is at the center of this crisis because it is at the center of the war of values in Europe. Support Kyiv or not, fund armaments or not, align with Washington or not — these are questions that cut through Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Slovak electorates like a knife. What Pavel represents at Ankara is a Central Europe that has not abandoned the project of Atlantic solidarity despite populist pressure. This is not a decisive victory. It is a resistance. And in the long war, resistance has its own dignity.

Zelensky and his team are not only watching military spending and equipment deliveries. They are also watching who fights to maintain support for Ukraine within the institutional workings of allied democracies. Petr Pavel — forced to attend Ankara by a judicial injunction — is one of those institutional fighters. In the moral geography of this war, he deserves to be recognized as such.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My acknowledged positions

I am an engaged observer of European political affairs. I am in favour of support for Ukraine, of meeting collective defence commitments within NATO, and of the solidity of democratic institutions in the face of populist pressure. These positions colour my analysis, even though the facts reported are verifiable and sourced. I do not claim neutrality — I claim honesty.

My analysis of the Czech constitutional crisis rests on documented sources: the Constitutional Court ruling, Reuters reporting, public statements by Pavel and Babiš. I have no direct Czech diplomatic source; I did not attend the deliberations. Everything I report is based on public information.

What I do not know

I do not know the exact content of Pavel's and Babiš's interventions at the Ankara summit — this column was written on the basis of information available before and during the constitutional crisis, ahead of the summit. I do not know what the Constitutional Court will decide in September 2026 on the substance of the powers distribution. I do not know whether the Pavel-Babiš cohabitation will produce other crises of the same type. These uncertainties are real.

I have not invented declarations, nor attributed to actors positions they have not publicly expressed. Every citation I use is public and documented in the sources I cite.

Sources

Primary sources

Reuters — Czech constitutional court orders government to let president attend NATO summit — June 24, 2026

Anadolu Agency — Czech government approves president's participation in NATO summit after court ruling — June 29, 2026

Prague Daily — Political dispute in Czech Republic over NATO summit attendance, Constitutional Court rules in Pavel's favour — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

US News — Czech President, Prime Minister Clash Over Leadership as Both Pack for NATO Summit — June 29, 2026

Anadolu Agency — Czech president defies govt, says he will lead delegation to NATO summit in Ankara — June 2026

EU Insider — NATO Ankara summit and Trump tensions — 2026